• The Eleven Jugsmen

    From reader Daniel: I love reading the posts about custom Brown Jugs that readers make.  In an awesome twist of fate, I found myself as the owner of a replica mini Brown Jug.  Actually 11 of us did.  One of my good friends got married in August.  As a gift for all the guys who stood up, ushered, etc…he had replica Brown Jugs made. I had to pass these photos along. Right on, brother.   Best wedding photo EVER: Like those guys didn’t get action that night.   Check out these beauties:     One disappointment: As an ordained minister in Jugology, I feel like I should have officiated this wedding.  I case you are wondering, yes, all the scores are on there and it has the two spots awaiting the 2011 and 2012 games.   Nicely done, gents!  Consider yourselves in the Jug Brotherhood, Local 1903 along with: Brian Snider – 2011 post Eric Mierzwiak – 2009 post Mark Foster – 2010 post Dennis Dail – Post from earlier this year Related:  Little Brown Jug Lore 

  • Team 132 and The History of Michigan Helmet Decals/Stickers

    IIRC I saw these earlier in the year on the seniors but I haven’t seen a good pic so here’s one.  The Brandon Herron edition: Elsewhere…Brady Hoke explained that each game the regular captains will be joined by a senior honorary captain.  In week one it was Ryan Van Bergen, who found out on Friday night.  I asked Van Bergen if he know if Hoke had created any other individual honors or awards, including the helmet stickers.  RVB said Hoke isn’t big on the individual awards and wasn’t aware of anything Hoke planned to do. [Insert mandatory decal recap, via Dr. Sap]:

  • Denard Goes Schutt

    Nice try, Denard.  I’ve got uniform spies everywhere but even I caught this one.   This season Denard switched from a Riddell helmet, used the past two seasons, to a Schutt model this year.  Here he is in 2009 with the Riddell: And yesterday (from the nice photo gallery put together by Brad at MnB Nation), here’s the Schutt. A quick text to uniform guru Steve Sapardanis confirmed the switch.  Sap checked his notes and verified that indeed, Denard wore Riddell in the Gator Bowl but trotted out a Schutt at  the Spring game and at the Under the Lights press conference.  As I wrote last season, I’m partial to Schutt.  These are the helmets that are reconditioned and painted in Oxford, Ohio each year by a man named Russ Hawkins at a company called Capitol Varsity Sports.  More from my 2010 post: This May I asked Falk about how Michigan hooked up with Capitol Varsity and Hawkins and he told me relationship goes back to the mid-1960s.   Falk was the manager for his high school team in Oxford and naturally they used the local company for their reconditioning services.  This relationship followed Falk to college at Miami, OH when he handled the equipment under Redskins head coach Bo Schembechler. When he was reunited with Bo up in Ann Arbor in…

  • Ending Early

    From the official game release: This is the first Michigan football game to end before all 60 minutes of regulation have been played. Well kind of.  And I’ll clarify in a minute. It’s certainly not the first Michigan football game to end before the planned allotted time.   Most notably two of the most famous games in college football history ended early: The 1902 Rose Bowl (the first bowl game ever played) ended with plenty of time on the clock because Yost, Heston and crew were putting a colossal smack down on Stanford.  From the Bentley: With eight minutes remaining in the game, Stanford captain Ralph Fisher approached the Wolverine bench and offered to concede; Michigan consented. While this game yielded the Little Brown Jug, the great 1903 Minnesota-Michigan battle between the Western powerhouses also ended early.  The common story is that after the Gophers scored a late TD to tie the game, the Minnesota fans stormed the field and the coaches agreed to call the game. (I’ve heard other claims that approaching weather was a factor in the decision, but haven’t seen much evidence to back that up).  The Sunday November 1, 1903 Minneapolis Tribune says the game ended with “but a few seconds left to play.”  The Detroit Free Press from that Sunday said two minutes remained, headline:  Detroit…

  • Last Weather Delay (Photos from ‘06)

    Digging deep into the archive, here are a couple photos from the last time fans experienced a weather delay, at the 2006 Central Michigan game. First, a shot from Section 22 as fans waited out the delay:   After the delay, the teams went through a mini version of their warm-up routine: